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Monday, July 1, 2013

I did the first of the two bottles I'm going to showcase here several months ago, but I just didn't think it was enough to do a whole post about. Now that I'm in the middle of an ocean kick I decided it was the perfect time. Then, I found another awesome ocean discovery bottle and knew the two of them would make a great post.
So first, we have our ocean waves bottle. The idea for this one actually came from my Early Childhood Ed classes back in college, but I've seen it all over pinterest too. You take a regular old water bottle (preferably one with smooth sides, you may have to wander the drink aisle at your grocery store until you find the perfect bottle) and empty and clean it. Fill it just over half way with water and a drop or two of blue food coloring (I know, ocean water isn't actually blue, but you need the contrast here). Then fill the bottle the rest of the way with oil. I've made two of these and I found that I prefer Canola oil over Vegetable oil although they both work fine. If I remember right, the ideal oil for this is baby oil because it is clear (unlike cooking oils which tend to be yellowish) but I've never gotten around to trying it. I found some little plastic fish at the dollar store and dropped them in there too. I also tried adding glitter in the first one I made but I decided it actually made it hard to see the other contents, which is why I made a second one. Once you've got everything you want in there, use a hot glue gun or whatever else you have handy to glue the lid shut and that's it!
Because oil and water don't mix you can really see the waves forming in the bottle as you move it around. It's really fascinating, even for me! Erik loves watching the waves and trying to find the fish.

He also loves to shake it all up so everything is all mixed together (not a bad way to build those arm muscles!) It's fun to watch the layers settle back out.

Now, I wasn't able to get a decent picture of the other bottle, but it's pretty amazing, and while the first one I just showed is neat, this Jelly Fish Bottle is almost magical. I am going to use a photo from the original site, but you should definitely go check out her tutorial and other pictures, this is just too cool to pass up!

AND if you decide to pin it, PLEASE go to the original post and pin from her blog, not mine. She SO deserves the credit for this one!

Is that not the coolest thing you've ever seen?! I put it together last night and I love it! I made my jelly fish a little too big for my bottle, but I haven't glued the lid on yet so I'm probably going to fish it out of there and try again. It's still AWESOME though! I think I'm way more in love with it than Erik is, but he's little, I'll give him some more time.